


The Art of Survival

by orphan_account



Category: Hunger Games (2012), Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins, Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: F/M, Gen, I also apologise for the abundance of tags only not really, I mean children are dying so I guess that's a sensitive theme right?, It's the Hunger Games so you already know that everyone dies, M/M, Novel Length Fanfiction, Plot no porn, Sensitive themes, i think
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-05-24
Updated: 2013-05-06
Packaged: 2017-11-05 17:20:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 21,061
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/409021
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>“Nothing happens to me,” John replies. He pulls the bag back on again and straightens up, “I can only hope that applies today.”</i><br/>----<br/>Rated M for children who are dying, clearly.</p><p>Written by my friend Aleisha (who doesn't have an account on here) and I. This is a BBC Sherlock and Hunger Games crossover set during the 24th Annual Hunger Games. We aim to make this a novel length fanfiction hopefully, so that means chapters will be between 4,000 to 6,000 words each.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Just to make this clear, me and Aleisha will aim to update as much as possible, though because of the length of the chapters we might not update as much as we would like. It'll start a little slow because we want to put some background into it and keep the structure close to that of the actual novel. 
> 
> Either way, we hope you enjoy reading as much as we enjoy writing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 1 - Some basic background of John Watson and his life.  
> Starts slow but is just the build up for something much bigger. You can't build a house without some stable foundations.

When John leaves the house, it’s close to five in the morning.

He can’t sleep. He can never sleep on this day. This solitary day that haunts them every year. It’s something he’s grown up knowing. Something he’s been told about for every day of his life. It’s a permanent fixture clinging it’s talons into the back of his mind, always present, always there. Like a parasite slowly draining him from the inside. He still can’t get over it, no matter whether or not he’s grown up with it. It still stays in his mind, sometimes pushed back; only to be dragged to the forefront again as he sees the people around him suffer. Like today, when he will be helpless once more to the crying and screaming of friends and family.

So he grabs the worn leather bag that his mother always leaves over the back of one of the four chairs in the kitchen, the woods of none of them matching and all of them entirely different in design and colour when compared to the table. That’s okay, they feel homely this way. It wouldn’t be the same if they matched – wouldn’t feel right.

Before he leaves, he grabs one of the field guides they keep in the kitchen. The cover reads ‘Herbs and Flowers’ so John slips it into his bag, knowing that this is likely all he’ll find out in the meadow (plus he should probably brush up on this sort of thing – now is as good as ever, and his last chance. The last time he’ll need to worry). He pulls on a coat and slings the bag over his shoulder, adjusting the strap until it rests comfortably over his torso, the familiar, comforting weight of the bag sitting on his hip, and heads out the door. When he closes it, it’s almost silent – he doesn’t want to wake anybody up. They deserve the reprise and escape that sleep offers for as long as they can.

He doesn’t see his father or any of his father’s friends walking down the road that leads there as he usually would at this time of the morning. The mines are closed today after all. There’s no doubt in his mind that they’re probably exploiting the day off and taking advantage of the rest that it offers them, the long lie-in that it promises. They deserve it more than a lot of people.

Similarly, he’d often be getting ready for school around now. Not today. Today is important; they can’t have anybody missing it. So they get a holiday, a good luck from their teachers who are just as nervous about who’s going to be taken as the rest of them are. John feels sorry for the teachers because they know all these children. They have watched them grow and helped them learn. Eventually, like it or not, a teacher will have seen at least one of their cherished pupils be snatched away by the Capitol’s unforgiving grasp. It’s cruel and unfair, but that’s just life for them here.

It’s dark and the sun has yet to rise, but the light casts a pinkish hue in the sky above him, tainting the sparse white clouds with its glow. It’s beautiful, John thinks, something that can never really be controlled. It can be impersonated and simulated but the original can never be changed or made to do something it wouldn’t naturally. It’s an almost glorious contrast to his own life and the situation the people he knows, loves, hates and tolerates are put in every year. None of them deserve this and everybody (almost) can see and know that it’s wrong, that this shouldn’t be how it works. Even the people he despises, the people that bullied and annoyed him. Even for them he cannot erase the anguished cries of their families and friends.

A part of John unhelpfully reminds him it’s their fault, as collective Districts, for making the choice of trying to stand up for themselves and what they believed was right. Nobody rebels anymore. Nobody even so much as complains about the situation anymore. Not unless they want to be punished for voicing their opinions.

Freedom of speech is practically non-existent amongst the Districts and, unless you live in the Capitol, you can’t say anything that might be seen as something they could relate to an uprising. John wonders why they bother to talk at all sometimes. Those who do are killed if they’re lucky. If not…well…John prefers not to think about the fates worse than death the Capitol can give. It’s the Capitol’s way of keeping them all in order, stopping them from doing that they did last time.

This is the price they all pay after the rebellion they had against the Capitol and its rules some twenty-five long, harsh years ago. It ended with District 13 (miners of graphite and, as his friend Bill Murray had told him once, apparently nuclear weapons) being destroyed – they still show the clips on TV, even after so many years. His mother and his father tell him stories about it sometimes. It’s probably fresh in their minds, as though it happened just yesterday: the day they lost the war.

John steps into the long grass of the meadow and eyes the electric fence with a narrowed gaze, immediately keeping his distance from it just as he always does when he comes here. It’s not always turned on; even he knows that, as naive as he is sometimes. But he can never tell when it’s actually been turned off. Some of the children at his school have boasted before about having gone outside of the District and into the woodland areas that surround them. Those children had soon paid the price about not knowing how to keep their mouths shut when presented with such information.

The book on herbs and flowers is slipped from out of his bag and John steps carefully around the meadow as he flips through the yellowing, worn pages, all the time consistently staying well away from the fence. He tries to look for things that may appear to be promising (probably missing a fair few, but he’d rather not take chances) before moving on to a new spot further down when nothing presents itself.

Money is tight and they’re not doing too well at keeping a constant income (or an income at all really) so that’s why he does this, as little money as it so happens to make. John knows it’s a good thing that people aren’t getting hurt as much as they seemed to be, but it’s horrible for his mother’s business. What with her being a doctor and all. Unfortunately, that’s how it works really; if people can’t pay, they don’t seek medical attention. They sit it out and see what happens. Either they’ll die or they’ll get better, simple as that. In the end, nobody can pay, not really.

Rosemary waves up at him from the ground as it sways in the soft breeze that has picked up. John flicks to the corresponding page in the book held in his hands just to check that it actually is the herb he thinks it is and not some mistaken poisonous look-a-like. He’ll never forget the time he brought home mushrooms he had thought were fine initially but had never bothered to check the book for. Everyone’s stomach had paid the price that night. Though, in hindsight, John can see he was lucky it had just been their stomachs and not something worse – he knows how many plants can easily kill a person.

It turns out that the rosemary is, in fact, rosemary so John picks half of what’s there and leaves the rest to grow back. He ties the bunch of herb with a short length of string around the middle so that it doesn’t mix with the few flowers he’d managed to find in the other part of the meadow. Pushing up the sleeves of his coat, he adjusts the way the bag sits on his shoulder slightly before continuing on down the length of the fence.

After around two or so hours of walking and looking around the meadow, he fills his bag a satisfactory amount with bunches of thyme, rosemary, and lavender, along with lots of other apparently edible plants. He’s pleasantly surprised with today’s haul, hoping the rest of his day will go as well as this – he just hopes everything is what the book says it is.

The thought of going straight back home makes its way into his mind but he rejects it almost immediately – he can sell these things at the Hub to the old woman with the glass eye that has taken a liking to him and his herbs. A small smile flickers onto his face as he remembers the first time he’d gone into the Hub and had met her. He’d been having trouble selling the plants he’d found for a decent price and the old woman had given him far more than he’d been expecting for his goods. So now he goes to her exclusively; it’s a sort of bond they have.

He steps out of the meadow and onto the streets that are beginning to fill with a bustle of activity and a collective murmur of discontent. All that time in the field meant John had almost forgotten that today was the day of the Reaping, whereas now talk of it flitters around him, fading in and out of his focus as he passes groups of people talking about it in hushed, quiet tones. The smile that had graced his lips drops as he walks through the streets and winds his way down roads on his way to the Hub.

Upon entering he sees that it’s bustling with its usual activity, though he can easily notice that it has become a bit more muted than it usually is. The air around him is thick with tension, hatred and an underlying sense of fear. That’s understandable though, under the circumstances.

Today is the day that each District in Panem must put forward one girl and one boy to dance around a synthetic arena that has been created by the Capitol and its Game Makers (its puppets). John hates all of it, despises every last bit of it, but there’s nothing he can do but sit there and let it happen. He can’t even complain, not properly. The Capitol is too strong and, while the Districts take up the most space in Panem, they’re weak and weaponless.

This year is the twenty fourth annual Hunger Games. Five hundred and twenty nine children dead, soon to be five hundred and fifty two, all because the Capitol wants to get a point across – wants to keep each of its Districts in order and within their grasp of control and power.

John despises it.

Pushing the thoughts to the back of his mind and ignoring them as well as he can, John pushes his way through the small crowds that the Hub harbours as he makes his way to the old one-eyed lady’s stall. He smiles back at her when she smiles at him, even when he’s pushing past two people to get to her table. As he slips his bag off his shoulders, she makes the effort to sit up that little bit straighter.

“What have you got today then, Johnny?” she asks, still smiling, as the bag is placed down on the table. Her eye drifts off to the side but she doesn’t appear to notice it. John doesn’t mind, he used to but by now he’s grown to quite like the quirk it offers. Probably because he knows what caused it, because he knows she at least managed to survive the rebellion.

“Some herbs. Some flowers. I can only hope that they’re not poisonous,” he answers and she laughs, the sound catching in her throat at times. She’s old but she’s seen the perils of war – they’ve taken their toll on her but they haven’t claimed her life. John can’t help it as he finds himself admiring this old woman. He feels more than a little bit guilty about not being able to remember her name.

“Pass me your bag then and I’ll check through them, dear,” she says in a motherly tone and John shifts the bag across the table without a second thought.

She searches through the herbs, nodding at times and making little noises as she comes across something that she apparently likes. Eventually, she gives a little nod of approval at John’s turn up and looks up at John again. He can’t help but to notice the way her eyes shine with a youthful glow – old but not broken – and he envies that he had to grow up so fast where she was able to stay young.

“I can give you three loafs of bread but no more,” she says and smiles up at him once again.

“That’s brilliant,” he answers honestly, and then, as he suddenly remembers, he adds on, “Mrs. Hudson. Thank you.”

A simple grin is directed at him and Mrs. Hudson passes over the loaves one by one before she begins to empty the various plants onto the table, arranging them as she goes. Briefly, as he holds the bread and watches, John wonders if this will be where he ends up when he gets older. That’s if he doesn’t get shoved down into the mines, anyway. Almost all of the men in District 12 get sent to work down in the mines. The only one he knows that doesn’t is his friend Sarah’s father who works as a surgeon, paid in food instead of money. It works well for him and, as embarrassing as it is, more than a few of his mother’s jobs are directed to her from Mr. Sawyer.

“Good luck at the reaping, John,” he’s knocked out of his thoughts by Mrs. Hudson’s motherly tone and he smiles at her, regaining his mental footing as he pushes the bread into the leather bag while she says, “I’m sure you won’t be picked, dear.”

“Nothing happens to me,” John replies and she smiles wider at him. He pulls the bag back on again and straightens up, “I can only hope that applies today.”

They part ways with a nod, Mrs. Hudson staying in the Hub as John makes his way back out into the streets of the town again. The activity in the twisting, winding streets had picked up quite a bit and the murmur of voices that was there before has picked up in its volume. He walks through the crowds, careful not to knock anybody or have them knock the bread inside his bag.

It really doesn’t surprise him when he’s struck, suddenly, by a wave of jealousy towards the adults that surround him. He wants to be one of them so much. He just wants to put this whole thing behind him and push it into his past. He wants to get through this. He wants to live his life.

The relief that he experiences every year when his name is not called is short lived and by far the most temporary, most artificial joy in his life. The next year his name will simply be put back in with the rest once again and he’ll have even more of a chance of the slip of paper it is written being plucked from the clear glass bowl and read out to the entire Panem.

If he ever is called, he knows that becoming a tribute in the Hunger Games is practically a death penalty. Out of the twenty four years that the Hunger Games have been going on, District 12 has never had a winner. Most of the time, the tributes that his District offers are taken out in the first round and are amongst the first to go in the bloodbath that is the Cornucopia. If his name so happens to be called, he has a strategic plan for getting through at least the first leg of the race: run as fast as he can and get as far away as possible.

John jumps at the sound of children loudly singing a mantra for their game. Turning towards the source of the noise, he slows his walk, listening to their words as the children giggle. He smiles sadly. The words to their song are simple but so morbid and melancholy, sounding out of place and yet perfectly suited to the high, cheerful tune that only the children of Panem could summon. He recognised it alright; children of District 12 had been playing this game for years, he remembers being told its name once, but it eludes him now.

_“Dead girls dance they burn and twirl!_

_Witch Hunt! Witch Hunt! Burn this girl!”_

John stops to watch them, watching the girl in the centre of her friends groping blindly as the others duck out of her grasp. It feels like ice is dripping down his spine when he realises this could almost be a representation of the Hunger Games. You’re either running blindly, or trying to hide and dodge, even if it’s only to prolong the inevitable. Any trace of a smile fades fully as he looks at the children, really looks. The girl with the blindfold is about twelve. She will qualify this year. Today could be the last day she plays this game with her friends because in a few weeks she could be playing for her life, not just for her entertainment.

And she wouldn’t even have a chance.

_“-Witch Hunt! Witch Hunt!...”_

John sighs softly, turning to walk away. There isn’t long left until he needs to be home and lamenting on the possible fates of the others would do nothing to help anyone.

_“-They burn and twirl!...”_

He flinches when something touches his leg, a small hand grasping the material of his trousers and he looks down at a head full of dull brown hair, eyes covered by a blindfold. He can see the other children attempting to stifle their giggles, standing still now and grinning at him, breaking out into a new verse of their song, chanting it only once:

_“The Pickety Witch! The Pickety Witch!_

_Who’s got a kiss for the Pickety Witch?”_

The girl frowns, her hand tugging on the cloth of his trousers before moving her hand up, reaching his waist before realising he’s much too tall (even for John) to be one of her friends, frowning as she pushes the cloth off of one eye. Said eye widens in embarrassment, blood creeping along her neck and into her face as she stumbles backwards.

“O-Oh! Sorry Mister! I-I-uh…” the child looks down in embarrassment, hands messing with the front of her dress as she stumbles over her words, scuffing her feet awkwardly. The sight makes John smile, seeing just how young she really is. He crouches down, placing a hand on her hair and planting a light on her forehead, a part of his sub-consciousness summoning the words to the last verse for him.

_“The Pickety Witch, the Pickety Witch. Saved by a kiss was the Pickety Witch.”_

He chuckles when the girl blushes even more, running back to her friends with a grin on her face, turning back to wave at him.

“Good luck today, Mister!” silently, John wishes her good luck too as he repositions his bag on his shoulder. Everyone knows they’ll need it. What was that thing the Capitol used as a motto? Oh yes: May the odds be ever in your favour. Yeah, right. Pushing himself forward, he realises the voices of the children’s mantra still hum around him as he leaves.

_“Dead girls dance, they burn and twirl!”_

“ _Witch Hunt, Witch Hunt, burn this girl_ ,” John finishes quietly, the lines murmured through lips that barely move. As he turns the corner, he thinks of the girl in the blindfold, his friend Sarah, his sister, Harriet. It feels as though his chest is burning as he remembers all of them will be entered today. Dead girls dance, after all.

By now John has completely lost track of the time but at least he knows that he has to be in front of the Justice Hall by two in the afternoon for the Reaping. Any later than that and he’ll be prosecuted. It’s about a half hour walk from his house to the Justice Hall so he knows he has plenty of time to spare considering it can’t be past midday already, the sun hasn’t reached the centre of the sky yet.

This year is the last year he’ll ever need to go through all of this, then he’s home free. He won’t ever have to be part of this horrific system ever again. He can finish school, get a job, get a relationship and get a life of his own to lead. What he will have to do, however, is watch people die, kill other children from other Districts, and bear witness to Districts crying over their losses. He will have to watch children be ripped away from their families, watch as their parents cry and scream and sob. Everyone knows that nobody from District 12 will win. It just makes everything that little bit more tragic.

Just this one last Reaping and he doesn’t have to worry about being the child that ruins his parents’ lives. They can’t deal with Harry and her drinking problem alone; he has to be here to help them and her through it.

Even then, he hopes that she doesn’t get picked for the games. Not because she doesn’t stand a chance (no one does, not really), but because it would hurt his parents more to see her going in than it would to see him going in. She’s vulnerable and weak. At least John knows how to defend himself effectively and stick up for himself and his right to live. He’d never get out alive but he sure as hell wouldn’t go down without a fight. District 12 could at least have the privilege of an illusion that he might live.

When he gets back to the house he can see his father sitting on the porch smoking cheap tobacco from a pipe he’d inherited from his great grandfather. The man stands and in that single motion John is reminded once again that he got his height from his mother and not his six foot upwards father. It’s not fair but he will never, ever complain about it to anyone other than himself. If he did he would just draw attention to it and that is never good.

His father looks like he’s about to tell him off for a moment before John sees him set eyes on the bag that has loaves of bread peaking out over the top. Whatever he has to say must have died down in his throat and been ignored in favour of the promise of food. Instead of shouting, his father tilts his head in a gesture for John to follow him back into the house, so he does. On the way through the kitchen, he slips the back off and sits it down on the table.

In the end, John’s father leads him into his and his mother’s bedroom. John sits down on the edge of the bed, watching as his father rummages and riffles around at the bottom of the wardrobe, apparently trying to find something. Eventually, an old white box is pulled up from the bottom of the wardrobe and brought into view before being settled down on top of the sheets of the bed.

“During the first Hunger Games, after the revolution,” his father starts to speak up, staring at the box even when John moves his gaze up to watch his quiescent features as he talks, “Your mother and I were both seventeen. We barely qualified for the Reaping, but we still had to be there, or else there would be consequences.”

John looks to the floor and winces because he knows exactly what the consequences would have been. Death. Brutal death at that. His mother has told him stories of the first Reaping, how people who stayed in their houses had been dragged from them and brought before the audience gathered in front of the Justice Hall, the only part that had remained relatively untouched by the war. They’d been shot in front of their family and friends. He hopes he never has to witness something like that.

“My parents thought that if I were to be picked, I may as well look good. So they brought me this,” his father continues and shifts the lid from off the top of the box.

Inside John can see a pair of well tailored trousers and a matching blazer to go with it, both of them a pale grey that appeared inclined to hint towards being slightly blue. There’s a shirt too, a muted blue in its colouring and clearly made to be worn without a tie. He stares at it, confused for a few seconds, before his father continues.

“That was my first and final Reaping. I haven’t even looked at this since then,” his father sighs and if John didn’t know him so well, he might have said he were on the verge of tears, “I want to give it to you.”

John nods in understanding at the sentiment of the offer and stands up from the bed. He turns to pick up the box but his father’s calloused hand gripping at his shoulder stops him in his tracks. Then, before he really knows what is happening, his father’s arms are wrapping around him and pulling him closer. John raises his own arms to hug him back, hesitantly then tightly.

“I’m proud of you,” John’s father says as he pulls away from the hug. He gives a final nod as if evaluating his actions as satisfactory and gives John a soft pat on the shoulder before he leaves him in peace so he can get changed into the clothes.

He peels his own clothes off first and folds them before neatly placing them on the bed (no point in being needlessly messy is there?) and pulling the trousers out of the white box. When he pulls them on, he’s more than pleased to find that they fit him rather well and aren’t noticeably too long for him. He slips the shirt from the box and carefully unfolds it, relishing the feel of the unusually soft fabric as it brushes against the skin of his hands – such luxuries are rare in District 12.

His mother comes in just as he’s finishing buttoning up the front of the slightly-too-big shirt that he’s already starting to like. John pushes the sleeves up to his elbows, the cuffs still buttoned up, to hide how they would dangle over his hands before he tucks the tails of the shirt into his trousers and beneath the waistband to hide the length. He straightens it out and he has to say that he almost looks smart – nice, even. When he reaches for the pale grey blazer, his mother speaks up.

“Leave it off,” his mother says quietly from her vantage point stood in the doorway, a soft smile tugging at the corners of her mouth, “It’s probably far too big for you anyway.”

A matching smile snakes its way across John’s mouth and pulls his mouth upwards into a soft smile laced in blatant affection. He places the worn, white lid back on the worn, white box and leaves it where it is on top of the covers on the bed. He makes to leave the room but, as he reaches the doorway, his mother pulls him into a hug much as his father had, but this one is desperate, tight, and clinging – done more out of need rather than out of purpose. John holds her close for as long as she keeps her face buried in the fabric that covers his shoulder.

They both need this more than either of them would happily admit.

When she pulls back her eyes are glistening with the signs of tears that are yet to fall. John doesn’t want to be around when – if – they do. Neither of them mentions it, even as the backs of John’s eyes begin to prickle with a burning sensation that he hasn’t felt in so long. He just ducks his head down and plants a light, gentle kiss on her cheek. When he pulls back she’s smiling at him sadly.

“Good luck,” she says simply and John can’t help but commend her on the ability she appears to possess to prevent her voice from breaking. John wishes he’d inherited it, but he hadn’t.

“I’ll be fine,” he says in return and he’s relatively surprised when he finds that he sounds honest as he says it, his voice staying steady and his voice taking on a tone to be believed. His mother nods and smoothes out the front of the shirt with a tiny, teary smile before she pulls away from him completely. There’s a fleeting sensation where he misses the motherly affection before he steels it and ignores it.

“We’re going to leave in fifteen minutes,” she says gently, and then adds on in the most detached and casual tone she can muster, “I just have to check on Harry first.”

They both understand that ‘check on Harry’ doesn’t mean what it actually says. It means that she’s going to check that Harry isn’t drunk just yet, or check that Harry hasn’t done something stupid, or check that Harry hasn’t thrown up on her clothes like she had done last year when she’d first discovered alcohol. Harry is sixteen now, barely a year younger than John who has never so much as touched alcohol in his life. It’s atrocious.

“Okay,” he replies and she leaves in order to let him get a good look at himself in the full-body length mirror that his parents’ bedroom wardrobe holds within it.

Upon scrutinised observation, he tucks parts of his shirt in a little bit more and can almost not see that it’s just that little bit too big for him. He frowns a little bit before unbuttoning the top two buttons. It looks far better after that. Then it suddenly hits him, the reason why he even needs to feel so vain about his appearance today of all days (because of the cameras – can’t have District 12 looking dirty in front of the whole of Panem) and he feels guilty for having maybe felt a little bit of pride in how he looked.

He tweaks and adjusts his hair detachedly and pulls on his usual pair of boots seeing as they’re both the comfiest pair and the smartest pair of shoes that he owns. Just as he’s finishing pulling the laces of the second boot tight, his mother pokes her head into the room and they share a slight smile as he ties the laces off in loops. John thinks, as they smile at each other, that maybe he can get through all of this without anything happening – he’s going to be okay, everything is going to be fine.

His family exit the house and stick together as a group for all of a few streets before they start to filter into the crowds coming in from every other corner of the District. Harry is the first to split from the group and John can only hope that she’s not going to be stupid enough as to actually miss the Reaping, but he wouldn’t exactly put it past her.  Then, when his father and mother begin to talk to some of the men who also work in the mines and their wives, he’s left to walk on his own through the crowds for a while.

After a few minutes, he’s tapped on the shoulder and turns to face a grinning Sarah. She looks pretty with her hair pulled back into a single brain, her pale blue shirt tucked into a greyish skirt. It’s simple and sweet and John can’t help but notice the way that it flatters her. He returns her smile as well as he can in this particular situation and they stop in the middle of the crowds to share a quick hug, people around them continuing on as though they aren’t even there.

“God, it’s been too long since we last spoke, John,” Sarah says as she pulls away from the embrace and John snorts, giving her a wry smile as they continue to walk through the bustling crowds, thicker than ever as they begin to approach the Justice Hall.

“You pick such wonderful times to start talking to people again, Ms. Sawyer,” he replies, voice pitched deliberately to exude playful sarcasm.

“Oh shush, you. Like you’ve actually been making an effort to talk to me,” she grins and smacks his arm childishly. He can’t help but to admire both the way she is able to maintain such a youthful innocence at this age and the ability she has to stay – without fail – so upbeat every single Reaping. It must be a defence mechanism; it must be so tiring.

“Been a bit busy, what with Harry and stuff,” John says and Sarah nods in understanding almost immediately – it’s so nice to have someone that actually understands sometimes.

“Guessing her drinking has got worse then?” she asks, placing a reassuring hand on John’s arm as they continue to follow the still growing crowd through the packed streets.

“Much,” he answers. He doesn’t have to say any more than that, not to Sarah.

Sarah understands how Harry’s drinking affects the entirety of his family so much. That’s probably why they have developed this friendship in the first place and why it has become as strong as it has. John can trust Sarah with information about Harry, trust her not to say any of it to another soul in District 12, and Sarah can trust John with information about most things, really. It’s the most important friendship John has had so far in his life. He wouldn’t give it up for anything. If he lost Sarah…John worries he’d lose himself.

They share a final hug as they reach the dense crowd that has gathered in front of the Justice Hall. Then Sarah is being lead off to the girl’s section by a Peacemaker and John is left to make his own way to the boy’s section alone.

This is the hardest part of everything for him because he has to stop himself from running away from the thing he truly fears most of all – his name being called out. He doesn’t care that some of the adults don’t see the Reaping as something major, why would they when they all lived through it and many elder ones missed it entirely, John thinks it’s horrible: the curling anxiety that tightens like a noose around every child’s throat, the prayer that they won’t be called, that they will live to see the next year.

It’s just about the most dramatic part of his life and he has to go through this sickly feeling of dread every year. Feeling it grow more and more each time. And then everything is going quiet as John looks up towards the stage that has been set up. It’s begun.

This is where the Hunger Games truly start: in the guilt and hatred of every person across the Districts.

\----

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 2 - The Reaping.  
> Finished writing and has been updated.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Reaping.  
> Now we're getting somewhere.

Even though he knew that Harry would end up pulling something like this, it still annoys him when he sees her stumbling, undeniably drunk, with her friend through the crowd, neither of the young girls looking like they have the slightest clue where they’re going. Curling his hands into fists at his sides, John tries (in vain) to hide the anger that he can feel clearly bubbling up inside of him, pushing painfully at his chest from behind his ribcage; he should have known better that to think his sister wouldn’t so something stupid. She always does. It’s just how she works. None of them can stop her from doing things like this, but it doesn’t stop at least John from hoping that maybe she’ll come to her senses.

Making his choice, he makes his way towards her staggering form (held upright by her just-as-drunk friend) with single minded determination. If she thinks she’s going to get away with this then she has another thing coming because John sure as hell isn’t going to let something this serious go. She’s drunk at the Reaping and if they both get through it alive then he’s going to have a very stern talk with her when they get home. If either of them is picked as a tribute then...well, they’re not going to get picked as tributes because John doesn’t know what he’ll do.

He pushes the thoughts of inevitable circumstances from his head and sets to the task of shouldering his way through the surrounding crowds and groups in order to get closer to his sister. However, just as he has some brilliant thing to say to her when he reaches where she is, words balanced on this tip of his tongue and completely uncaring of how cutting it may or may not be, a Peacekeeper beats him to her and grips both of the drunken figures to lead them to their designated area. John feels like screaming with all this bottled up frustration that’s just festering inside of him and dying to get out, but it deftly dissipates when another Peacekeeper taps him on the shoulder and points towards the boy’s section. He nods and is left to make his own way there.

On the outskirts of the group, he sees his friend Mike Stamford from school and figures it’s better to wait for utter demise standing next to someone he knows and can tolerate than it is to wait for it surrounded by people he cannot stand. An upside is that Mike doesn’t have any siblings eligible for the Reaping so John won’t have to offer up a shoulder for the other boy to cry on. If he had to do that, he’s pretty sure he’d break down crying himself. The Reaping does that to people; it breaks down the emotionless façades people spend their lives building up and it leaves them feeling more vulnerable than they’ve ever felt before in their lives.

As he ducks under the tape which sections off the area, Mike greets him with a wide smile and a clap of his hand against John’s back. “Ready to die?” he asks, his tone far too cheerful and light for the situation at hand. The statement itself is all it takes for John to scoff in amusement.

“Ready as I’ll ever be, mate,” John replies, shuffling slightly and allowing the people around him to adjust to the lack of space his body causes when added to the already overcrowded area.

“Fair enough,” Mike says and their conversation ends there, the both of them staying quiet as they wait to get this over and done with.

They’re relatively close to the stage and John is right next to the empty space that is left between the two sections of male and female possible tributes. He can see quite a bit from his rather good vantage point, including the fact that there’s currently nobody on the stage that has been set up in front of the Justice building. This means they’re likely to be stuck in a state of restless anticipation for a while. He hates this part: the part where the crowds are relatively settled but the show is not yet ready to commence. He hates how, now that he has nothing to occupy his mind with, he can pick out a fair bit of the activity that’s happening in the crowd that engulfs him.

He can hear and pick out the diligent buzz of electronics as the camera crew from the Capitol finishes setting up their equipment and getting their gear ready and running to film the lives that are about to be ruined. He can hear a sobbing sound from a few rows in front of Mike and himself and, when he looks through the gaps in the net of people before him, he can pick out a larger male form comforting a smaller one. It’s most likely a younger brother and – judging from the height – he can’t be over the age of twelve. The loudest of the noises around him is the ironically quiet murmur of discontent: not loud in volume but loud in outspread quantity. He closes his eyes against the various sensations around him only to open them around five minutes later when people finally, finally begin to file onto the stage.

The presenter for their District is new. He must be because John has never seen him before. He heard from a few people that the presenter from District 3 had been removed (which is to say that they’d probably been killed) so maybe their own had got bumped up to a better gig. He’ll know when they show the Reapings from the other Districts on television but for now, he pushes the thought away. Either way, he hopes that she’s enjoying the Reaping just as much as he is – which is, of course, not at all.

The new presenter makes his way over to the microphone that has been set up on the stage, leaving the Mayor and the Head Peacekeeper (only there to fill up the seat that has been left spare due to their lack of a Victor thus far in the Games) to take their seats behind him. His hair is a bright and quite frankly alarmingly shocking shade of electric blue and, from what John can see, is appears his eyes are lined with a glittered version of the same colour. His clothes are just as elaborate and bright as anything else that has come from the Capitol and, rather than being in awe, John just wants the colours to stop trying to burn his retinas.

“District Twelve, it is an _honour_ to be here,” says the mass of glittering blue as he speaks loudly and clearly into the microphone, voice vibrating with the sounds and tones of the elaborate Capitol accent. It’s easy to see that his face is painted when his lips pull up at the corners to reveal a smile which screams that he wants to be in a better District than this one. “The Capitol welcomes you to the twenty-fourth annual Hunger Games! And may the _odds_ —“

“Be _ever_ in your favour,” Mike mocks the accent and the phrase in hushed tones next to him and a fair few people around them, including John, snigger quietly and try not to be heard.

“My name is Christophe Piné and I hope you enjoy this year’s Hunger Games as much as the last,” he smiles for the cameras and moves away from the microphone back to the spare seat on the stage besides the Mayor.

The large screen that has been set up on the stage lights up with the seal of the Capitol before it fades out again into the ruins of District 13. The image makes John’s skin crawl every time he sets his eyes upon it; he thanks God that he only has to see it once or so every year seeing as his family don’t ever have the television on for anything other than mandatory viewing so they’re spared seeing the image every time there’s some overbearing announcement from the Capitol shown. Mike and he exchange mocking whispers throughout the entirety of the short film that seems to go on for what feels like hours. By the end of it, his hand is pressed tightly over his mouth as he tries to hold back giggles at things that shouldn’t be funny but are anyway.

A glance to his right shows him that Mike is far worse for wear than he is; eyes squeezed shut and his face red with the effort to hold back laughter. Mike looks at him and John raises an eyebrow only to have Mike whisper a hoarse ‘stop it!’ at him as the film finishes, the Capitol seal appearing on the screen once again before fading back away. John hopes that they didn’t catch that on camera – the Capitol would probably kill them. Christophe Piné stands from his seat and steps up to the microphone once again, sweeping his hair from out of his eyes as he tilts forwards to speak into it.

“And now, we shall choose a male and a female tribute to have the _joy_ of representing their District in the Hunger Games,” he smiles, teeth glinting in the sunshine in a way that almost resembles the hungry, waiting mouth of a malicious shark. “As always: ladies first!”

He all but saunters over to the glass bowl that holds the names of the females of the District and John is slightly surprised that half the crowd isn’t blinded as the sequins sewn into his outfit reflect the rays of sun bearing down upon them. Christophe’s hand dips down into the bowl of fluttering paper slips and pulls one of the pieces of paper from the very bottom. There’s a collective intake of breath from the crowd as they wait in horrified anticipation while Christophe makes his way back to the microphone.

The paper is unfolded and flattened carefully by manicured nails. Christophe clears his throat after the few seconds that it takes him to read the name on the slip. Crumpling the paper in the palm of the hand, he leans forwards and announces in a loud, clear voice:

“Harriet Watson.”

At first John relaxes but then the information finally makes its home in his brain. No. _No_ , surely he’s misheard somehow. His sister can’t have been picked. She just can’t have. No matter how much he might hate her sometimes, no matter how much he might disapprove of her sometimes, he’s supposed to _protect_ her and he just...can’t. This one time, no matter how hard he may try, he can’t keep his little sister safe.

He feels the trembles begin to spread all over his body, wracking it and causing it to shake. He’s almost afraid that he might be going into shock but somehow it doesn’t feel serious enough to be even close to something like that. Sarah had told him what shock was once, when there’d been a mining accident. The school had been closed and the people who had relatives who worked in the mines had all been taken to the site of the accident. They’d waited with their mothers, siblings for their fathers, brothers, uncles to come up from the smoky chamber below their very feet.

Sarah had stayed with him because Harry was predictably drunk and his mother had been seriously ill at the time. They’d waited until it had got dark, sitting on the blackened ground as they’d watched the lift come up from the smoke before going back down under the surface once again to fetch more of the trapped people down there. John had felt the burn of tears behind his eyes but had refused to cry. He was one of the lucky ones apparently because, as the lift had risen for the last time, his father had stepped out of the compartment. Before John had known what he was doing, his arms were wrapped tightly around his father’s torso and they were hugging each other close. Much to his withering pride, he hadn’t cried even when his father had reciprocated the hug. It was one of the few they had ever shared.

While he may have been lucky, not everyone else was. Sarah smiled at him as he pulled away from his father but it quickly flipped into a frown as she watched the Peacekeepers walk over to one of the students that John recognised from school. The girl started shaking when they told her the news, then crying in broken sobs. When it looked like she couldn’t breathe, Sarah had bid them farewell and jogged over to the startled looking Peacekeepers who clearly didn’t know what to do with the hyperventilating girl. John’s father had clapped him on the shoulder and said they’d better be heading home. The next day at school, Sarah had explained it to him properly.

“The poor girl was in shock,” she’d said with a sad expression painting her usually cheerful features.

“Shock?” John had questioned, causing Sarah to give a little laugh.

“Yeah, shock. Your mother’s a doctor, how do you not know about shock?” she’d asked but John had just shrugged and given her a little frown before she’d explained it. “It happens when something shocks the system, you know...like a loved one dying, or watching someone get stabbed, or something. Your body can’t take it so you get dizzy and your skin becomes all clammy and cold. You feel like you can’t breathe and you feel faint. A lot of the time, people pass out because their body can’t handle it. They get weak, nauseous, sometimes even throw it. It’s not exactly a nice experience.”

While he can gauge the symptoms in others, it’s harder to do it with himself. After he continues to shake but doesn’t pass out, he refuses to believe that he’s in shock because he probably isn’t – he definitely isn’t. His trembling is becoming entirely involuntary though and when Mike places a pitying hand on his shoulder he almost jumps clean out of his skin.

The crowd, as he has been suffering in silence, has relaxed collectively, thankful that it wasn’t them. It wasn’t their child. It wasn’t their sister. It wasn’t their own flesh and blood. John tries to pull himself together but his arms are wrapping around himself before he can properly think about it and Harriet is being lead down the dusty trail up to the steps an onto the stage. A few rows in front of him and to his left, he sees a girl lean down to say something into the girl next to hers ear.

“It’s alright – it’s just that alcoholic Watson girl,” he overhears the too loud voice of the cocky sixteen year old. That’s nice for her to say; she’ll live the rest of her life. She locks eyes with John when she looks around and John glares at her with all he’s worth, ignoring the shakes that continue to filter through his body and dampen the effect of the glare considerably.

Harry is lead up onto the stage and Christophe grasps her hand to help her up onto it and towards the microphone. John watches, hopeless and helpless, as she’s nudged towards the microphone and told to state her name to the crowd by Christophe as he wipes his hand onto the leg of the trousers he’s wearing with poorly hidden disgust. Harry almost stumbles as she starts towards the microphone. When she reaches it, she learns forwards, her nose almost touching it, and states defiantly: “Harry Watson.”

Some of the people in the crowd are snickering and making fly away comments. John can her them all around him but he can’t gather enough sense to bother with reacting to them properly. He just stares towards the stage as Harry is guided away from the microphone and Christophe is reclaiming it. He leans to the device after a moment of hesitation before pushing that gleaming Capitol smile back onto his masked face.

“And that was Harriet Watson, female tribute for District Twelve. What a... _special_ individual she is! And now we’ll move onto the boys, unless – of course – there are any volunteers,” he smiles wider, faker, and looks out across the female crowd.

District 12 has never had a volunteer throughout the entire course of the Hunger Games. From the beginning, their District has recognised the Games as being nothing short of a death sentence, therefore volunteering would be suicidal. Nobody wants to be in the Hunger Games and so he doesn’t expect anybody to volunteer. There’s no point in getting his hopes up for some stupid event that will never, ever occur.

 _Nothing happens to me_ , his brain supplies unhelpfully.

But apparently his brain is wrong because there’s a hand in their air on the girl’s side, waving slightly, and a voice that’s quiet even in the silence of the crowd as a girl speaks up saying. “I volunteer. Me, I volunteer.” It’s calm and steady and unwavering and John can almost not believe his luck. Harry won’t be killed! But why? Why would someone volunteer to replace his sister in the Games? Why would they risk their own lives in order to save his sister? Are they crazy? Insane? ...Suicidal? Why? _Why_?

He’s so caught up in his questioning thoughts that he doesn’t even notice when the volunteer is lead onto the stage. The questions are whirling around in his mind, bouncing off the sides of his brain as he tries to put his finger on just what the hell is happening.

“And here is our _valiant_ volunteer, stealing away _all_ the glory from the other tribute!” Christophe gives a little laugh, his voice sounding in the background but John isn’t paying attention, not even when the Capitol accent oscillates through his ears and head. “What’s your name, darling?”

“Sarah Sawyer,” John stops thinking and his eyes snap up towards the stage. Oh, God – this is so much worse than it being Harry up there. He’s not sure why but it just feels like that.

“And why did you volunteer, Sarah?” Christophe asks, making up for the time wasted when Harry was on stage.

“For a friend,” Sarah says simply, eyes searching through the crowd’s until she finds John’s, holding them there and keeping him frozen even as Christophe directs her to stand further back on the stage, away from the microphone.

“And now for the male tribute for District Twelve,” Christophe announces chirpily and smiles another Capitol smile before he heads over to the glass bowl that holds the names of the male tributes.

‘I’m volunteering,’ John mouths to Sarah, and already gripping the tape and ready to lift it as he makes his mind up. Sarah mouths ‘no’ back to him and shakes her head slightly when his grip on the tape tightens. Christophe is getting ready to dip his hand into the glass bowl and John feels his own hesitation growing with every second that passes. He’s almost convinced not to when she mouths ‘please’ at him. But he shakes his head back at her and mouths back with finality ‘protecting you’. He lifts up the tape and ducks under it, hearing Mike Stamford yelping in surprise as he almost tumbles to the ground. He straightens up and arranges his words before spitting them out, effectively stopping the Peacekeepers in their tracks towards him.

“I volunteer,” he says clearly, loudly. Christophe raises an eyebrow before he grins wide, putting the slip of paper he picked back into the bowl and making his way back to the microphone.

“Well, the aim is to volunteer _after_ the name is called,” Christophe chides, grin still in place, but John just stares back at him blankly. “But we all _love_ an enthusiastic tribute. Come on up!”

John makes his way onto the stage, his legs only wobbling slightly and he believes he deserves some sort of award for not falling flat on his face. It’s as though time is coming to a stuttered standstill as he steps further onto the stage. The District is eerily quiet and he almost regrets his decision until he remembers who it was for. Christophe beckons him over to the microphone and pushes John closer when he’s within touching distance.

“And here we have our _handsome_ male tribute for District Twelve! Now, what’s your name?” Christophe asks, leaning over from next to John to speak to the crowd.

“John Hamish Watson.” He states, voice unwavering even when he hears a loud sob come from towards the back of the crowd. He just knows it’s his mother. _God, John – don’t cry, just don’t cry_.

“Oh, I guess you want to stand up for the Watson pride, right? What with Ms. Sawyer stealing all the glory,” Christophe comments. From this close, John can see his hair is actually a wig and his face is more covered in make-up than he originally thought. It’s practically caked in the stuff.

“No, I didn’t,” John says bluntly because he will not go into the Hunger Games being anything other than himself. This isn’t for glory, this isn’t for pride, and this isn’t for some sort of vengeance. This is for Sarah, this is for—“I did it for a friend,” he says before he even thinks about it and glances over at Sarah, his features softening slightly as he does so.

Christophe gives a curt nod and hastily pushes him over to where Sarah is standing, saying something about a ‘budding romance’ as he returns to the microphone. Really Sarah and he are just the best of friends. The show, as it were, finishes abruptly now that there’s nothing more to do and the two shiny new tributes are lead inside the Justice Building. It hits him when he sits down in one of the rooms, waiting for his family to come in, that this is going to be the last time that he ever sees them and the thought makes his heart lurch almost painfully inside his chest. God, what has he done?

The small leather sofa, built more for purpose than for comfort or looks, is made of a battered yet relatively soft material when he sits down. It feels wrong under his fingers. It’s not like home; it’s too different, sticking to his sweat damp hands as he presses his palms against it. A horrible reminder that he won’t see home again. A part of him wants to cry, to just break down here and now where no one can see or judge him. Just this morning he was collecting flowers in the meadow, and now? Now he’s signed his own death warrant. He closes his eyes against the furnishings of the room and buries his head in his hands.

If he breathes in deeply enough, maybe he can smell the scent of the lavender and herbs from this morning. His father’s suit still has the slightly dusty, comforting smell of home around it. If he concentrates hard enough, he can almost begin to imagine he’s not sitting on some battered leather sofa in a room that feels increasingly smaller the longer he sits within its walls and persistent boundaries. Harry’s there, perfectly sober, smiling and laughing with their mother as she helps her cook dinner. They’re cooking a rabbit stew with the herbs John collected this morning, the smell filling the whole house and warming it with the heat from the fire. John is waiting for his father to come home so they can all eat together. They’re a family. They’re safe. They’re happy. The door opens and John turns towards it, smiling brightly. Is their father home? It must be him--

“John?”

John’s fantasy is broken by the sound of his mother’s voice. He raises his head to see her at the door, Peacekeepers leading her through, muttering something offhandedly about her having ten minutes in which to say her goodbyes. John doesn’t care. His throat feels like it’s closing up again as he looks at her. Her eyes are red but dry. She wouldn’t shed tears until later, when he is gone and on a train to the Capitol. She steps slowly towards him and he rises to meet her. Within an instant, however, he is enveloped in her arms with his nose buried in the soft fabric of her woollen cardigan as his face rests against her shoulder.

He can feel his body trembling, his legs feeling like they’re going to give out below him. He’s thankful when she sits down with him on the couch again. Numbly, John’s aware of being coaxed downwards until his head is on his mother’s lap, facing outwards to the rest of the repressing room. He’s vaguely aware, after a few silent seconds, that her hands are stroking his hair comfortingly, fingers brushing and soothing through the soft, blonde strands. They haven’t done this since he was a child, awakened in the darkness of the night by awful dreams of past Reapings. Of the bloodshed of the Games. Of his friends being slaughtered before they’d even had a chance to live.

He breathes deeply, closing his eyes as his mother’s long fingers brush through his hair. They’re comfortably quiet for another minute or so until she talks.

“Your father...he had to take Harry home. She’s promised to go sober, John,” she says quietly. John can’t help but snort. Harry has promised that so many times before and look at how that turned out. His mother sighs softly,

“John, just...why?” she asks, her voice sounding vulnerable and sad. John opens his eyes, turning his head to look up at her.

“I can’t let Sarah go through this alone. She’s not a fighter. I did it to protect her and she’s my best friend. If I don’t protect her then who will?” he answers, turning his head back to look at the room when he glimpses his mother smiling bravely, eyes shining. John knows how hard it is for her, but he presses on. “Besides, Harry would be dead before the first hour. I won’t go down without a fight,” he finishes, ignoring how his mother sighs gently before continuing to pet his hair.

“I know, John. I just...I wish there had been another way to do this,” she bites her lip as she speaks; John knows this is a nervous habit, “John, there’s something your father asked me to give you,” she moves the hand that’s not busy with petting his hair to the pocket of her cardigan, “You can take one thing from your District into the arena as a token. We thought we should give you something to remind you at least a little of home.”

John sits up as his mother gestures for him to do so, whatever she’s planning on giving him clenched within her closed fist. He holds his hand out for her to give it to him but she ignores it, reaching her arm up over his hand, her other arm coming up to join it. He feels something being lowered over his head and around his neck and he looks down. They’re his father’s dog tags. He closes his own hand around the silver disks that rest again his chest and feels that they’re still warm from the heat of his mother’s hand. Tears trickle freely down his cheeks and he can’t stop them no matter how much he may try. His mother’s arms are wrapped around his shoulders again and he looks up at her as she brushes away the tears from his face.

“I’m so proud of you, John. So, so proud. Fight hard, alright? Give Harry someone to stay sober for and give the Capitol a reason to remember our existence,” she says, voice wavering slightly as she forces a tight smile onto her shaking lips. “I’m so proud,” she repeats and John knows she’s telling the truth.

However, the words tear a deeper wound in John’s heart as he continues to look up at her, the tears drying on the skin of his cheeks. He wants more time: more time to say goodbye; more time to tell everyone how much he appreciates them; more time to show how much he cares for them all. But the Peacemaker is waiting in the doorway, leaning against the frame, and his mother appears to be on the verge of tears again. There’s only time to whisper a hurried ‘stay safe’ before she’s forced out of the door and John is left by himself again.

He rubs harshly at his face to get rid of the last of the fallen tears before he hears the door creak open again. It’s Mike, of course it’s Mike because really, who else would it be? The Peacemakers definitely wouldn’t allow his mother more time and his father and Harry are at home. The thought that he won’t be able to tell Harry off for being drunk comes into his mind and he almost laughs at the fact. He becomes aware of his friend, smiling awkwardly as he stands at the door. He stays there for a moment before stepping forward and grasping John in a tight bear hug, making John chuckle and hug back just as tightly.

“You, Watson, are an idiot,” Mike says firmly when he pulls back, holding John by his shoulders at arm’s length.

John shrugs. “I’m a Watson; I’d say our family isn’t exactly prone to smart decisions.” This felt good, to joke with Mike. It makes him feel like he isn’t about to walk to his death. Mike hands him a square bundle, covered in an old, worn looking cloth.

“Harry asked me to give this to you,” Mike says and John looks at the bundle, pulling off the cloth carefully. It’s a field guide of medicinal plants. The one his mother had used when she was training to be a doctor. It was extensive with clear instructions and diagrams on how to use the plants. Harry had said she’d lost it years ago. It’s very clear to him now that she had been lying.

He looks up at Mike with a smile and asks, “You’ll keep an eye on them, right? I need you to keep an eye on them.”

“You know I will.” Mike nods, and then his mouth curves at the corners as he grins again, “So, you and Sarah then?”

“There’s nothing going on between me and Sarah,” John answers with a smile, shaking his head,”I did this to keep her alive as long as possible. I’m not under the impression I’m going to win this, but I’m going to at least try to make sure she does.”

“What if it comes down to just you two? Do you think she’s got it in her to kill you?” Mike asks with a frown, folding his arms over his chest as he studies John carefully.

“If it comes down to it, they do give us a fair few lethal weapons. I’m sure I can think of something to do with a device that’s supposed to kill someone,” John says finally with a dismissive shrug. Mike’s eyes widen in shock and he stares at John, unable to think of anything to say. Finally, he unfolds his arms and claps John on the shoulder as the Peacemakers open the door once again.

“You always had a soldier’s attitude John. You take care of your own before yourself,” he gives John a mock salute with an easy grin before he’s escorted from the room.

John sits down on the leather couch again, running a hand over his face as his places the medicinal guide next to him on the battered sofa. He doesn’t think he can take much more of this saying goodbye and he’s starting to be grateful that he doesn’t become close enough to people for them to even start to miss him, never mind them come and bid him farewell before he’s shipped off to the Capitol. The door creaks open for a final time and John knows who it is immediately even before she talks.

“Oh, Johnny dear…” Mrs. Hudson says as she steps apprehensively into the room. John smiles as she makes her way over to the sofa, mostly putting on a brave face for her sake but also because he’s generally just glad to see her. He wasn’t exactly entirely sure that she’d come to say goodbye anyway. Mrs Hudson looks far more tired than she did this morning. There’s less of the youthful light in her eyes. She sits next to him and ruffles his hair lightly with a shaking hand. “You brave boy.”

John smiles up at her. “Sorry I won’t get to bring you any more flowers, Mrs Hudson,” he says. It made the old woman smile at least. She moves a hand to a pocked in her blouse, shifting slightly and pulling out a drawstring pouch. She adjusts the strings with careful fingers before she passes it to John who looks at it with a vague confusion.

“Cinnamon and crushed lavender. To, um, to remind you of home,” she explains a little sheepishly in response to John’s questioning expression.

He lifts the small bag close to his face and closes his eyes before inhaling deeply, enjoying the wood like yet slightly spicy smell of the cinnamon and the sweet scent of spring mornings that comes from the lavender as it dances across his senses. He looks up at her gratefully. “Thank you,” he says with a little smile but Mrs Hudson just shakes her head.

“Thank _you_ , John,” she says, standing up from the sofa as Peacekeepers crack the door open for a final time, ”Show them that District 12 can offer up just as good a warrior as any Career Tribute can be.”

She smiles a smile that makes John want to return it so he does. She is lead out soon afterwards and John sits there holding the small pouch of crushed flowers and spice inside the fist of a shaking hand. John looks at the gifts he’s received, tracing his fingers over the yellowing pages of the field guide, feeling the comforting weight of the dog tags as they rest against his chest, the cool chain curling around his neck.

Sarah and he will be shipped off soon. Every single person in every single District in Panem will be forced to view his Reaping. They will see him volunteering and they will see one of two things: either they will see a brave boy volunteering to bring glory for his District, or they will see a weak child putting himself forward in a futile attempt to keep his friend safe. He isn’t sure which one he thinks he’d prefer it to be if he’s honest. They’re both just as bad of an option as each other; one because it’s wrong and the other because it’s entirely true.

As he begins to delicately turn through the yellowed pages of the field guide, he makes a vow to himself in the privacy of this room. He’s going to fight with everything that he’s worth. They want to kill him? They’re going to have to work for it.

\----

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 3 - Tribute Train.  
> It's currently in the process of being planned and will be updated in no later than a month, hopefully.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For Jenny!  
> I apologise for the over-abundance of semi-colons in this chapter. I did try to cut a few of them out but... _semi-colons_.

The station almost makes John feel claustrophobic. Crammed with reporters, cameras, people calling out their names as Sarah and he walk close beside each other towards the waiting tribute train. It's every bit the great beast of a machine there to rip them away from the life they've known and the families they've grown up with. John's happy to see that his expression is carefully blank when he risks a look up at the large screen that has been set up on the platform. Sarah's eyes are rimmed with red from where she's been crying and John does his best to act like he doesn't know, like he hasn't noticed it at all. She's walking with her head held high and mouth in a firm line, hair falling around her face now and it looks strong, like she's in complete control of the situation despite its inevitability. Like John, she carries a small bundle; the last presents from her family.

John laces his broad fingers between her own smaller ones. The slim fingers shake in his grip and he squeezes reassuringly, trying to offer her at least some comfort. The noise of the crowd shifting around them seems far away, like being inside a room where everyone else is talking outside, their voices muted by the material of the walls - it doesn't make sense though, because the crowd are all around them, if behind barricades, and it should be loud but it isn't. Christophe soaks up the attention with ease, smiling with overly bright white teeth and waving overly decorated hands at the cameras. He's used to it; the crave for limelight is all part of the Capitol lifestyle and he was basically made for this.

Boarding the train is not easy at all. Being the furthest district, John and Sarah will have the longest way to travel to the Capitol, their journey taking two days. Life gives them small mercies, at least. Though it's hardly a comfort knowing they will arrive last, the other tributes already there. No doubt Christophe will make them watch the other Reapings for them, which John doesn't quite think he would be able to handle. He already hates this, so why would he want to watch other people be taken away from their families and forced to do exactly the same as he is.

Despite the rabid butterflies that seem to be slowly breeding a colony in his stomach, John can't help the small gasp of surprise that escapes him when the train doors slide open and he actually sees the inside of this thing they’ll be travelling in. Luxury like this could never even be _dreamed_ of in District 12.

The carriage is carpeted with soft rugs and John finds himself fighting the urge to kick off his worn, beaten shoes and just stand there with his toes buried in the cloud-like material. For a moment he's almost completely certain Sarah slips a foot out of her shoe and presses it down to the floor with a quiet sigh. Christophe finishes up with what seems like attention seeking and turns to them with the same wide smile that he put on for the cameras before he starts herding them farther into the train carriage like they're frightened cattle.

If John's first thought was that all this is impressive, he's now completely adamant that he may, in fact, fall over with the fact of how stunning the bedroom he's being shown is. Somehow, he just about manages to register Christophe telling him supper will be ready soon as though he's not at all affected by it. Why should he be? He's from the Capitol - this sort of thing is so normal to them but...John still can't get over it.

A whole bedroom (complete with a dressing area and a bathroom) all to himself, and so much of it is wasted space. John is certain that the bedroom alone is larger than his own home, the bed spacious enough for his whole family to rest more than comfortably, with room even for Harry's tossing and turning and lashing out (John remembered many times they'd shared a bed and he'd woken up with bruises as children; before the drinking started).

The shower is full of knobs, dials, and buttons that John makes a mental note to experiment with later, just so he knows ahead of time exactly how it works. He can't remember the last time he had a shower, a proper one anyway and definitely not a warm one, God no. Such luxuries never came to life in Twelve. Maybe it was the last time there had been a summer storm, when everyone who could do so had gone outside and let the storm wash away the layers of dirt and grime. Never had the water been so warm though. John scalds his hand when he first turns it on, the buttons of it apparently set to an ungodly temperature.

He hisses in pain as the skin flares red, clutching it close and hopping from foot to foot the tiled room muttering a lovely variety of curses Harry had unknowingly taught him. They never had hot water at home. After fiddling with the dials more, shoving his hand under the spray every now and again to test the temperature, he's finally able to say that the water is acceptably warm, even if it - strangely enough - does smell a little bit like mint.

Standing under the slightly cooler spray, John feels tension ease out of his muscles, shoulders and back relaxing as he tilts his head back and closes his eyes against the spray of water cascading down around him. It all seems more than a little bit wasteful. He sees people suffering everyday in District 12, people suffering from things such a disease, starvation, dehydration, and having no shelter. It's cruel, John realises, rubbing at his arms a little harder than he should, ignoring the sting of it. People die because they don't have the basic necessities to so much as live. Then look at the Capitol, flaunting around with their elaborate clothes, their elaborately decorated trains, even their elaborate showers, for God's sake.

John clenches his teeth, turns off the shower with a jab at the button that's more violent than he intended. He steps out of the shower and grabs a towel, wrapping it around himself. He ignores the sting of blood where his blunt nails have cut into his upper arm.

\----

Sarah knocks on his door to call him for dinner during his frantic pacing. In the end he had chosen to dress in a soft, light beige jumper and brown trousers; the simplest, plainest things he could find in the wardrobe amongst all of the other elaborate and fanciful fabrics and designs. He actually likes the jumper though, it's soft and woollen and it feels warm against his skin; it's comfortable over the thin shirt he's wearing underneath. Sarah's dressed in a pale blue dress when he opens the door, the skirt of it fanning out slightly in loose pleats to reach down just below her knees. He has no doubt that she probably chose the plainest things in her wardrobe as well. John takes a moment to admire how it makes her eyes stand out before smiling softly, feeling comforted when she returns it. At least she's holding out.

"Christophe says supper's ready," she says with a slightly tighter smile. John hesitates before he looks back over his shoulder at the flamboyant room behind him.

"If the food is anything like this, I don't know if I'll be able to stomach it," he replies, but steps out of his room and closes the door behind him with a soft click. He pauses for a moment before continuing with a slight frown, "There's too much here. It's like a weird form of sensory overload."

She nods; the tight lipped smile is still present. "Believe it or not, I think I know exactly how you feel, Johnny."

Sarah leads the way through two or so train carriages (all wildly over furnished in a way that makes it look fit for royalty, which they've basically become; though they're royalty that is expected to die) to where a large mahogany table has been set up on the far side. There's so much food on it that John actually feels a little sick. He steels himself and takes a seat next to Sarah when she sits down. They both know that they're hungry, but they're likely going to feel more than a little bit guilty if they eat anything more than an average amount of food. It's not fair that there's so much to waste here and yet people are barely getting by back in District 12.

Christophe enters via the door leading farther onwards into the depths of the train, opposite the way that they had entered. He's smiling, which is only expected. The Hunger Games is all just entertainment to him; he sees no trouble in them killing each other.

"My _darling_ Tributes, you do know you are allowed to eat?" he takes a seat opposite them, still smiling a smile that is all perfectly aligned teeth, "And eat as much as you like. Goodness knows you need to put some weight on!"

He laughs but neither John nor Sarah joins in. Instead, John sits up a little straighter and looks down at the food that's been placed on his plate. He looks over at Sarah and she gives him a little shrug before picking up her fork and stabbing at whatever sort of meat has been put on her plate. John decides to follow suite, though the amount they're going to waste still bothers him slightly.

It's wonderful. Of course it's wonderful, it's Capitol food. The nagging sensation dies down a little bit and he looks up at Christophe while he chews the mouthful. He's less than surprised to find Christophe watching them intently, as though they're some interesting act that a circus has tugged along for his entertainment. The man clears his throat with a cough then picks up the notepad that he’d set down on top of the table upon entering. He pulls out the pen he had tucked behind his ear and taps the surface of the paper.

"Okay, so, first things first while you eat. Tomorrow you will be meeting your trainer when we pass District 7. He's _awfully_ talented. The Tribute who won last year was actually trained by him," Christophe smiles up at them, though he looks a bit disappointed when they don't seem as excited as he is. He twists his lips slightly, then looks down at the notepad and continues, "He'll go through tactics with you for when you're actually in the arena. After that, I'll spend the rest of the day going through how you should act during your interviews and helping you create a character for yourselves. The day after we arrive in the Capitol, you meet your stylists, and then the Parade happens. Then you train for three days up until you have your interview. Either of you have any questions?"

John stopped paying any attention when the word ‘trainer’ had hit his ears, and he’d completely stopped listening when ‘stylist’ had been said. He knows how those stylists are, what sort of things they make the tributes wear in order to make an impact on the viewing audience. It's almost as horrifying as the fact that he's going to be killed soon, which says a lot. He really just doesn't want to be paraded around naked for the whole of Panem to see.

Sarah clears her throat beside him. "Um, Christophe," she starts, though it's clear she's nervous, "When we, when we go through training and meet for you to develop our interview characters...do me and John do that together or do we do it separately?"

"I'd say do it separately considering the fact that you're going to be pit against one another in a fight to the death. Wouldn't do too well to get familiar, though it's clear that you're already close to one another," Christophe shrugs, leans back into his chair, and taps it against the surface of the paper again. "Essentially, it's all up to you. Do it whichever way you think will help." His tone makes it sound as though he thinks they're a lost cause anyway.

"Together. Right, John?" Sarah asks, turning slightly to John with a flash of a well mannered smile.

"All the way," John smiles back. Christophe frowns.

\----

Later on during that evening, John and Sarah are introduced to the recordings of the other Reapings by Christophe, who sits them down in front of the television set. The screen is far large than it has any right to be. They watch them from District 1 upwards, thinking that they may as well watch them in order. District 1 produces female tribute, slim yet somehow intoxicatingly curvaceous, who ends up alongside a male tribute with dark hair and faint stubble. For some reason their appearances combined make John shiver and slightly sick to the stomach. The two are obviously Careers, the female waving at the camera with a smile rather akin to cyanide plastered upon her lips. The boy's arm is draped casually over her shoulders as though it’s perfectly at home there; as though they’re actually friends. They both know that there can only be one winner.

Jim Moriarty and Irene Adler.

"They're frightening," Sarah mumbles quietly. As the two are lead off, the camera zooming in on them, they just about catch the male's wink right before the door closes on them. John can't help but nod in agreement as he's pretty sure that boy had sharpened teeth.

"Well, with luck we won't have to deal with them too soon," he says, turning his head slightly to offer her a tight lipped smile that doesn't quite reach his eyes.

Sarah smiles back, though she looks light she's thinking of saying something else, but then the District 2 and their Reaping is playing and they fall into a strained silence in order to pay attention to the flickering television screen and actually watch.

The tributes from there don't seem much more comforting in their appearances. The male is a strong looking boy, obviously well-trained; his strawberry blonde hair flopping over his forehead and almost into his eyes as he frowns at the crowd in what might be disdain. Although he does looks silently smug about being picked as Tribute. The female is slightly smaller than average - being both a bit short and very slim - but John can see in her eyes that there is absolutely nothing weak about her. Her hair is the colour of fire and, paired with her eyes, shows them very clearly that they’re not going to go down without a fight. They don't say anything about them but Sarah still leans away from the television, a slight frown etched into her features.

Sebastian Moran and Kate Prince.

District 3, specialising in electronics, isn't all that much more comforting. The girl is called first, and they both watch with horror and disgust as she has to be helped to climb the overly large steps of the stage. Sarah covers her mouth with her hand.

"John? Is she, God...is she actually old enough to be in the Games? She isn't-- she can't be twelve. She looks about, what? Eight? At most," Sarah says, moving her hand away from her mouth as she speaks.

Sarah's not wrong. The girl is tiny, a mouse of a thing. Considering the way that mousy blonde hair is pulled back away from her face into a neat ponytail, the comparison is more than fitting in John’s eyes. The resemblance really is uncanny.

Only difference is that this poor girl isn't anywhere near as strong as Sarah is, which is only expected considering her age. She's trembling as the Peacekeepers lead her up to the stage, her hands gripping tightly onto her forearms in a gesture John recognises as wanting to curl into yourself and disappear. He is more than familiar with the stance. Sarah has her hand pressed over her mouth again where she sits next to him, her eyes wide as she watches the girl almost collapse, her whole form practically convulsing with shivers and tears falling down her face. John can't think of anything to say.

No one volunteers for her. A woman is screaming in the background, crying out. Peacekeepers drag her by her arms to a chair, sitting her there unsympathetically before returning to their posts.  Numbly, John feels Sarah bury her face into his shoulder. He puts an arm around her, waiting for the male tribute to be called.

"I volunteer."

Before the male tribute has even been read, a low baritone of a voice rings out deep and resonating. The crowd had been so quiet that the voice appears even louder than it would normally. The crowd parts for a tall boy, almost unnaturally slim for their District, where they at least get enough to live comfortably on. The camera catches a bob of dark curls as he jogs through the gap that has formed in the crowd and ducks under the barrier set up at the front. He's breathless as he looks up at the stage.

There's a murmur of discontent as the officials look back and forth between each other. The woman reading the names looks confused. Volunteers aren't common, not in this District anyway. She looks over at the Mayor and mouths something unseen to the cameras, but he just shrugs, silently telling them to get on with it. So what if this boy has volunteered, it doesn't matter. It's likely that they'll die in the process anyway.

The hand of a Peacemaker reaches down and helps the boy up onto the stage. He walks over to the microphone without even needing the prompting wave that the woman from the Capitol offers. Instead he leans into the microphone and speaks his name, loudly and clearly.

"Sherlock Holmes."

He looks over to the woman, eyebrow raised in a way that can only be described as condescending. After a few seconds of silence, he shrugs and makes his way over to the girl that was called before. He kneels in front of her, a forced but impeccably faked smile on his face, and rests his hands on her small shoulders reassuringly. Someone turns up a microphone and a soft voice just about becomes audible.

"Molly, look at me." The girl leans forward, wrapping her arms around his shoulders tightly, burying her tear streaked face in the crook of his neck. Sherlock runs a hand up and down her back soothingly, "It's okay. I'm here now...come on..."

He picks her up and John literally feels his heart skip a beat when Sherlock turns back to the camera with sharp, piercing eyes. It's almost as though he's looking through the television screen right at them, his pale blue eyes judging as he blames everyone in Panem for this, as though it's all their faults. And it is, to an extent. It's everybody's fault that this has got so far, that it's been taken to this extreme. With Molly securely in his arms, Sherlock heads off into the justice building with her held tightly to his chest in a manner that is definitely protective. The camera cuts off.

Sherlock Holmes and Molly Hooper.

Sarah reaches up with a remote, turns to him and gives him a forced smile, before saying: "We'll watch the rest tomorrow, right?"

He nods dumbly, and then reaches for her free hand. She smiles, and he presses a soft kiss to her forehead. "I'm going to get you through this, okay?" he says.

"What? Like he's going to get her through it?" she asks, and they both know exactly what she's talking about; it's impossible to not notice the similarities in both of their circumstances.

"Shut up, you're going to live," John sighs and pulls back, pushing his hands against the seat to stand up. He offers a hand to help Sarah up and she takes it, "I promise, okay?"

"Fine," Sarah answers, then hugs him tightly. "Just promise me that you'll get some sleep tonight," she says. Her voice is firm enough for him to understand that there's no room for any sort of argument.

"Of course, and you make sure you get some too," he answers, another forced smile on his face.

She nods and heads off up the carriage. He turns and heads to his bedroom in the opposite direction.

\----

The bed is far too soft, so much so that it makes John feel as though he's falling without anything there to properly support his body. He continually tosses and turns, the sheets getting caught and tangled around his legs as he moves. The room is far too dark for his liking. It feels endless and yet so suffocating at the same time - as though all of the light is being sucked from his surroundings, encasing the entire room all in a thick black air that feels (and almost tastes) like tar all around him. No matter where he tries to pull his thoughts to, he can't pull his mind away from that last Reaping he and Sarah watched. It pulls him back into its grip. A flash of blue does the work, the brightness of the colour sharp enough to slice through even the fondest memories of his family when he tries to think of them instead.

Sherlock Holmes. Who is Sherlock Holmes?

It takes what feels like an eternity for him to start to as much as drift off. Naturally, it's at the time when he feels the pull of unconsciousness tugging at him in mind and body that a knock would ring out against his door.

"John? Are you still awake?" a voice calls through the door.

Sarah.

"Yeah, can't sleep," he calls out, standing and moving over to the door to unlock it and let her in. The door opens soundlessly and the carpet shuffles under her feet as she moves into the room. The light let in from the brightness of the carriage is almost blinding and John has to wince against it. He closes the door when he sees Sarah has found her way over to the bed.

"Keep thinking about the Reaping? From three, that is," she asks as he sits down next to her, laying back into the too-soft mattress.

"Yeah," he replies.

She lies down next to him and they stare up at the ceiling in silence for a few minutes. He's about to ask her if there's any particular reason as to why she came to his room when she speaks.

"Same. I mean, I've been thinking about it too, John. I'm..." Sarah pauses. John can hear the straining in her voice, like she's holding her emotions back but not quite enough, "I'm scared. I'm really scared, John. If, well- if people like her can be chosen, like that little girl--," she swallows, continues, "--what chance do we have? What chance do any of us have?"

John moves his hand between them until he finds Sarah's own. He entwines their fingers, giving a reassuring squeeze as he rolls over to face her. "We stand every chance that they do, Sarah."

"No, _you_ have every chance that they do, John. I don't have any chance at all," the bed shifts as she rolls over to face him, eyes wet at the corners, "I have absolutely no idea what I'm doing here. I’m not a hunter, I’m not a fighter – John, I’m hardly even a healer. All I know is that the look in that District three boy's eyes is enough to tell me that I have no chance of coming out of this alive."

"I'm going to get you through this alive, Sarah. That's exactly the reason I'm here with you now," John says, his hand tightening around hers again. He isn’t going to screw this up; he isn’t going to lose her.

"John, that's exactly the reason why that boy is with that little girl now. You and him volunteered for precisely the same reason - to protect someone," she answers, squeezing his hand back. He can hear the doubt in her voice, "Only one of you is going to be able to keep the promise and District 12 has never won before."

"Well then," he mumbles, "That has to change eventually, doesn't it? Maybe this year will be the year that it does."

"You're painfully optimistic, you know that?" Sarah asks.

"One of us has to be," John answers, and then shrugs as well as he can manage when one of his shoulders is pressed down against the bed. Sarah sighs softly and curls up closer to John,

"Have you not thought maybe optimism just makes dealing with failure even harder?"

John pauses to think. He had been optimistic for Harry to go sober multiple times. He had been optimistic about getting through the Reaping without being chosen. He had even been optimistic about winning and getting to go home again until this afternoon. Sadness was not an uncommon emotion. John sighed.

"I don’t know Sarah. I’ve been this way for too long to tell the difference," John pauses for a moment before smiling. "Do you remember how we met?"

Sarah looks up at him, confused before she smiles softly in return, her eyes lighting up as she remembers the memory of it. "How could I forget? You came with your mother to treat my dad’s cold.”

"If I remember correctly, you refused to talk to me at first. You went as far hiding behind door frames every time I so much as looked around. And when I tried to say hello you just outwardly ran off,” John grins even as he says it, whereas Sarah thumps him gently in the arm.

"I didn’t know who you were, what you were there for, or how to act! You can’t blame me for that!," she defends herself. John smiles softly as he rubs his arm. Then he reaches out to rest a hand gently on the side of Sarah’s head, some of her hair tangling around his fingers.

"See, Sarah? This is what makes us stand out from the others. We have this – a past, a friendship, and a reason to fight for each other. Besides from District three, what other District can honestly say their tributes have that?,” even to his own ears he voice sounds too hopeful to really be all that believable. He just hopes Sarah will manage to understand what he’s trying to say.

Sarah stares at him for a few seconds, before her lips pull downwards into a frown. She shakes her head slightly then lets go of his hand, abruptly rolling over in order to face away from him.

"Good night, John," she says with finality.

"Good night, Sarah," he replies with a sigh, turning to face away from her in turn.

At least the darkness doesn't feel so all consuming when there's someone there next to him, someone there for him to share it with. He closes his eyes and somehow manages to fall asleep.

\----


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I am so sorry it has taken this long to update. So, so sorry. It's the curse of the Fic Writers.

John rarely dreams. When he does it’s of strange things that have morphed from the generic. Things like shadows; monsters; soulless forms with unseeing eyes. Sometimes it’s just the disembodied voices of people he knows, people he knew, but cannot find. John rarely dreams but when he does they’re not nice dreams. They’re nightmares. They only truly manifest when he’s nervous about something or under a lot of stress from certain issues (for instance, John often has nightmares in the week coming up to the Reaping for his District). It’s unsurprising, then, when he has a nightmare the first night on the train as it heads towards the Capitol and, in turn, his own inevitable demise.

In this nightmare John is surrounded by trees on all sides. He knows it’s a dream as soon as he realises there is a wind blowing the leaves off of the trees yet he feels nothing. Even as the leaves swirl around his ankles with each small gust of air, hitting against his legs but not initiating any sense of touch at all, there is solitude. The grass beneath his feet should tickle or scratch, but there is nothing: no feeling, no touch, no sensation at all. The sky is a dark blanket over his head and feels so much closer than it should be, as though it’s tendrils of darkness are drifting down to play with and blow at his hair. Slowly, he begins to walk forwards, pacing hesitantly along the line of the forest that the trees create. It curves into a circle around him to create a barrier between himself, the woodland beyond, and the world beyond that. He feels trapped: claustrophobic.

_Joooohhhn..._

John’s muscles tense. “Hello?” he calls back, certain that someone had called his name. The clearing he is in seems to be growing ever smaller with each circle he completes, like it’s closing in on him one tree at a time.

_Joooohhhn._

“Harry?”  He asks, though he knows the voice is too deep to be hers. Even though he can’t feel the wind or the heat (or the lack of heat) that this nightmare world creates, he feels goosebumps rise on his skin, a shiver trickle down his spine like ice tracing over each vertebrae of his spine. 

John stops walking when something brushes his arm, an actual touch sensation and it shocks him, causes him to jump because everything else around him had been nothing; no touch – no feeling. A high pitched distorted chuckle echoes around him, dancing back and forth and coming from seemingly all directions. He breathes in deeply, closing his eyes and opening them before steeling himself and turning his head towards the line of trees he’s been pacing around. His eyes scan the line of trees until they meet, lock with, another pair of eyes. But these are piercingly blue and peer intently back at him out of the thick of the forest. The pupils are consumed by bright blue, almost white, light and the eyes exude intelligence. They’re almost ethereal in the second layer of knowledge that they seemingly hold behind them. It takes a moment before he’s able to focus on anything other than the eyes, dropping his gaze down and around to take in the owner of them.

District 3: Sherlock Holmes.

The taller teen gives him a thin smile and it spreads over his lips like flowing liquid, slow and predatory. It’s not a natural smile and it looks so out of place on his face, his cheeks not moving as his lips twist upwards to an extent that it looks like they’re cutting through flesh rather than curving with it. Sherlock’s lips bleed, oozing blood to the point that John doesn’t know if the red comes from the lips themselves, or if it’s trickling down past the teeth that have been sharpened to a fine point, or both. As he raises one hand John can see a small, sharp knife clutched in his fist, the metal blade appearing to protrude from his own flesh instead of any natural grip as the image glitches and distorts itself. He watches as a black tarlike substance rolls down the point of the knife in thick clean cut droplets, curling around the boy’s fingers in roads that present an altogether absence of colour and light.

Sherlock opens his mouth, jaw stretching down to an unnatural extent as his eyes flare; blue light consumes the darkness as blood from his lips dribbles onto his shirt. A sharp, high, resonating screech starts low and then grows louder and louder and louder until-

-until John wakes with a gasp, tears stinging his eyes and cheeks as he presses his face into the pillows and tries to breathe past the burning sensation that’s seemingly lodged itself in the back of his throat. Instead he tries to focus on how sickeningly flowery the sheets he’s been sleeping in smell; how the scent sticks to the covers and inside his nose like nectar invading his sinuses. He coughs sharply past mucus caught in his throat and gulps in air even as it burns his lungs and he can’t understand why everything he does burns within his body. A sob wracks his shoulders and he presses his face into the pillow again, half hugging it with one of his arms as he body shakes and tremors.

It takes a while for his breathing to even out, shaking even as he sits up and hugs the pillow tightly to his chest. He aches for the comfort of his mother’s arms around him, holding him like she would when he had nightmares about the Reaping, telling him that it was all going to be okay even though they both knew it wasn’t. The tears flow freely down his face but at least they don’t get caught in his chest, don’t make his eyes and throat and stomach burn with the sensation of them being caught in his body; halfway out, halfway in. With a final breath, he wipes his eyes with the sleeve of his pyjama shirt. He contemplates wiping his nose on it as well but decides against it before pushing the pillow out of his arms and away from his body. He kicks it with his foot for good measure and it rolls off the end of the bed.

Only as he stands up from the bed does John notice that Sarah isn’t there anymore. He’s glad, more than anything else, that she isn’t there because he wouldn’t have wanted her to witness him breaking down like that. It’s embarrassing but it’s also horrific to see someone you care about cry like he just did. With one last look at the crinkled sheets and bed covers, he moves into the bathroom and turns on the shower, taking off his clothes before standing underneath it and letting the water wash the cold sweat from his still slightly shivering body. It’s a little bit sickening how quickly he’s grown accustomed to the luxury of having a shower, especially considering it’s going to be taken away from him very quickly when he’s thrown into the arena and expected to fight to the death.

Tilting his head up to the water, he washes away the tears and the slight amount of snot from when he was crying. He pushes water back into the short strands of his hair, mussing it up before shaking the water out again. After a long time, he steps out from under the spray and turns the shower off. A glint from the counter catches his eye and when John turns towards it he sees the dog tags that his mother gave him on his father’s behalf. He picks them up, cradles them in his hands as he feels the lukewarm touch of metal. It’s soft against the sensitive skin of his palms. Carefully, he pulls the chain on over his head and lets the little discs of metal rest comfortably against his chest before picking up a towel and drying himself off.

There’s no guilt as he kicks his discarded pyjamas across the floor and completely ignores the wardrobe, instead pulling on the clothes he wore the day before. As he’s zipping up the trousers, he notices his father’s shirt where he’d discarded it on the dresser. He picks it up and presses it to his face as he breathes in the scent of home: slightly dusty, muddy but fresh, with a slight hint of flowers that are real (unlike the putrid perfume of whatever they put on the sheets of his bed). If he breathed in again and focused hard enough maybe he would be able to focus on home enough to be back there with his family again. Instead he just pulls the shirt on, feeding the right buttons into the correct holes before he pulls the jumper on over it. The flaps of the collar poke out over the rounded woollen neck line and he has to tuck the tails of his shirt into his trousers to hide the way they hang out underneath the hem of the jumper, but it feels like a hug: secure and loving.

The smell of home leaves him feeling nostalgic already and, even though he knows he should be joining Sarah and Christophe for breakfast already, he elects to instead to rifle around and look for the few personal belongings that he has with him. He already has the dog tags and the shirt so he just needs to find the book and the little velvet pouch that Mrs. Hudson had given him. It takes a lot of searching around but he eventually finds the velvet pouch in the grey pair of trousers he’d worn to the Reaping, tucked deep into the pocket on the left.

As he pulls it out, the smell of cinnamon is overwhelming. John presses it to his face, breathes in the vivid scent of it. It reminds him of warm fires, thick woollen blankets: more loving hugs. After a moment of contemplation, he tucks it under the pillow of his bed and hopes that by the end of the day it will have dispelled the sickening smell of what the Capitol wrongly thought were flowers. With a tug to straighten his jumper out, he figures he’ll find the book later on in the day and leaves his room, heading further down the carriage to finally join Sarah and Christophe for breakfast.

When John enters the carriage Sarah and Christophe are studiously ignoring each other as the overdressed man scribbles things into his notebook, flipping pages back and forth as he seemingly constantly cross-references things. Sarah gives him a little wave as she notices his presence and he smiles in return, walking over to the table in order to sit down next to her.

“You have _got_ to try this,” she says with a grin, almost immediately shoving bread coated thinly in butter and some sort of amber/yellow syrupy spread into his mouth. He emits a surprised but muddled noise before chewing, eyes going wide as what he can only assume is the spread hits his tastebuds. He swallows, staring wide-eyed at Sarah.

“God, what is that stuff?” he asks, reaching for a slice of bread and a knife of his own.

 “The jar says ‘Honey’, so I guess that’s what it’s called,” Sarah grins at him as she pushes the proclaimed labelled jar towards him, “It’s very sweet isn’t it?”

“Impossibly so,” John agrees.

Sarah consumes another slice in the time it takes him to devour three. He stops when he starts to feel a little bit guilty and decides that he shouldn’t be eating more than he needs to. As he’s licking the honey off his fingers from the slice of bread that he elects to be his last, Christophe tucks his pen behind his ear and looks up over the tabletop at the both of them. He regards them both for a moment, eyes assessing and likely disgusted that they’re so uncultured as to not know what honey is, rather than being disgusted at the fact that their District is so poor that they had never even heard of it before. Ever the actor, Christophe coughs once to clear his throat then smiles broadly at them.

“Today, my _darling_ Tributes, you’re going to meet your coach. He trained District Seven’s Tributes last year because they didn’t have a Victor and now they do! Let us all _hope_ that the poor man can pull the same _miracle_ with one of you,” Christophe inclines, words holding poorly hidden distain as he speaks them in a semi-pleasant tone. “We’ll be arriving in District 7 to pick him up very soon. Oh, and I suggest you finish watching the tapes for the other Reapings by tomorrow seeing as he’ll want to do most of the talking then.”

And just like that, he stands from his seat with faux elegance and leaves the carriage. The train in turn chugs to a stop just as Christophe passes through the door (very soon indeed). They seem to have stopped at some sort of platform that not-so-proudly presents a sign labelled ‘DISTRICT 7’. Sarah glances at John and he just shrugs at her before standing himself and offering her a hand up.

“Guess he didn’t want to be around us any longer than he needed to be,” she says, frowning ever so slightly.

“We’re from District Twelve and we haven’t had a Victor in the twenty three years the Hunger Games have been going on. I think he just wants to be in a better District. We both know that presenters long to be in one of the Districts that always win because that’s where all the Careers are and the Careers are more excited about this sort of thing,” John answers, “They want to be where the Tributes crave the Games, not where they loathe them.”

\----

William Murray is not necessarily who you’d expect when you thought of a trainer of Tributes. He certainly isn’t what John and Sarah expect him to be. He isn’t inhumanly tall, doesn’t look ridiculously strong (though John knows better than most that looks can be very deceiving). He doesn’t even look like anyone from the Capitol or the richer Districts either. There are no cold eyes staring at them judgingly as though calculating just how quickly they’ll be wiped out in the Games. There isn’t even the usual ‘staring-down-your-nose-at the-pathetic-District-Twelve-children’ persona that John and Sarah had been expecting. In fact, he could almost be normal.

At least, he’s normal enough when they first meet him. The train had been at a standstill for a while at the station platform in District 7 when it finally starts to move again, so John and Sarah are sort of expecting it when William Murray strides into the room just as they’re finishing their breakfast. Christophe follows behind him; pen poised over notebook again as he crosses something off and makes some notes. There is a presence about Murray, though. It’s something that makes Sarah sit up just that bit straighter in her chair, something that has John rising to greet him with a handshake. From behind Murray, Christophe makes a small, quiet noise of distain that is most likely caused by how easily the two Tributes gravitate towards the man. Murray gives a slight smile to John as he shakes his hand, the grip firm and strangely comforting, grounding him in a way that makes him feel reality properly again.

 “John Watson and Sarah Sawyer: the only Tributes to volunteer for District Twelve.” As he talks, his eyes shine with something John recognises as respect. John nods his head.

“Yes. Sir,” John quickly says in addition and the term evokes a laugh from the older male, followed by a firm clap on the shoulder. Even Sarah gives a slight smile, her eyes shining and vaguely hopeful. Only Christophe seems to be in any way unamused by John’s over-politeness, pursing his mouth and standing up with a flouncy, over-dramatic movement before sweeping around the table towards John and this new man they seem to have taken a seemingly immediate liking to.

“My dears, _this_ is William Murray. Trainer of some of the finest Tributes the Hunger Games has ever seen! Murray will be working with you on making you the _best_ you could _possibly_ be so that you can bestow honour and wealth upon your District,” Christophe intones by way of interrupting their pleasantries.

To be fair, no matter how much John dislikes the guy, he has a small, grudging admiration for how cheerful he tries to stay when he clearly doesn’t want to be around them at all. Murray nods to Christophe – the only acknowledgement he offers – before looking back to Sarah and John.

“Once you two are finished with breakfast you can meet me in the carriage next door. I want to talk with you both before we get to the Capitol.”

With another swift nod and another firm clap on John’s shoulder, Murray leaves the carriage. Sarah and John’s eyes meet and they smile as John sits down next to her again. After a few moments, Sarah says, “I like him”. Her voice is quiet so that Christophe cannot hear them talking as he returns to his fancy food and elaborate meals. John nods in agreement.

“He seems practical. You know, sort of sensible. I don’t know him well enough to say yet, but I think we might have a small chance with him, Sarah,” John grins but the expression drops quickly into a frown as Sarah goes tense next to him, looking back at her almost empty plate. Oh, right. Only one of them would win. Only one of them would be going home, if either of them. Suddenly John isn’t all that hopeful.

He clears his throat and motions towards the door, “Should we…?”

Sarah nods and rises from her seat in silence as John motions for her to go first. Only, as John gets up to follow behind her, they’re stopped by the melodic tones and Capitol accent of Christophe’s voice.

“You two are awfully close, you know,” he says with false nonchalance.

They both turn to the man who has his fingers laced together under his chin as he observes then, eyes bright as he scans over their forms. Despite the falsified inclination of his voice, the tone sounds vaguely serious and verges on dark. John is careful to remain expressionless, standing just in front of Sarah so he’s between her and Christophe. He remains silent, not answering his Mentor’s words. Christophe just smiles: false and sickly.

“I will give you some advice, my dear _darling_ Tributes. You may hear this a _lot_ during the Games, and with good reason, for it is _very_ true,” he raises a hand, pointing a manicured, glittering finger at the both of them, “’Caring is not an advantage’. I would not stay so close to one another as you are now. It will surely serve you no good during a life or death situation, but I’m sure you already know that.”

His smile twitches at the edges, curving up slightly more and pushing at the flesh of his cheeks. He huffs a breath through his perfectly aligned teeth as though he had just told a good joke that he knew they wouldn’t understand. With a flick of his hand that oozes practiced elegance, he dismisses them and they move out of the room.

 “I don’t care what he says, I’m not abandoning you,” John says the second the door is closed behind them, grabbing Sarah by the shoulder and turning her to face him. Under the press of his fingers, he can faintly feel her accelerated pulse, but whether it’s from anger, sadness, or perhaps even fear, he cannot tell. She sighs at him though, pushing his hand from her shoulder.

“John, I know you wouldn’t leave me, but what if he’s right? What if you have to? I don’t want to die but I really don’t want you to die because of me. And even if we somehow end up as the last two people in that arena, we both know that only one of us is going to get out. One of us will either have to watch the other die or kill them ourselves. We’re doomed before we’ve begun, and I just--,“ she makes a noise of frustration, glaring at the floor as she balls her hands into fists and grits her teeth. She breathes in as if to calm herself then looks up at him again.

“I can’t take this, John. I can’t take knowing that only one of us is going to go home, if either of us. I can’t take the thought of having to face your parents if you die and I don’t. I can’t take this and I just want it to be over already. I just want to go home because I don’t understand why it even has to be like this in the first place.”

Sarah’s voice breaks on the last sentence, betraying how she really feels despite how calm she was trying to sound. She grits her teeth again and John can see it’s to stop her from crying but he doesn’t know what to say. She’s strong and she’s been keeping it together and she’s still trying to. He’s just ashamed that he hadn’t realised how much this was really hurting her. So instead he simply puts his hand on her arm. She looks up and he gives her the most reassuring smile he can manage before pulling her into a tight hug. Sarah’s shoulders shake but she doesn’t cry.

“What about that little girl from Three? What about her; her family? Do you think they care that she’s gone? Do you think they care that, that she’s only got a one in twenty-four chance of coming back? You saw District One: he’d actually eat her alive. He’d actually do it because he looked _insane,_ John. I...he just looked—“

Pressing his face to her neck, John just holds her closer and tighter to him. “Sarah, please. Just trust me because I’m going to protect you.”

“But John—“

 “No, I am. And when we’re the only ones left I’ll...I’ll think of something. If they want entertainment, they’ll get it but I won’t let you be hurt. I know it’s hard and, well. Honestly? I am petrified, really I am but I’m going to do this. You’re like a sister to me and I protect my family. We volunteered for the same reason on that front.”

Sarah gives a breathless chuckle that wavers ever so slightly but is still a chuckle no matter what. Neither one of them is crying but he knows that they both probably want to, but if they do it’ll just open floodgates that won’t let themselves be closed. Placing both hands back on her shoulders, he looks down at where a chain dips below the neckline of her shirt.

“Did your parents give you anything?” he asks, the chain reminding him of the dog-tags he’s wearing himself.

“My mother’s wedding ring,” she says simply.

She lifts her right hand and John can see that on her middle finger resides a slightly dented, very tarnished silver band engraved with a plaited knot work pattern. It must have cost a lot because silver jewellery is difficult to come by in District Twelve. Sarah drops her hand back down to her side as soon as John looks away from the ring and back at her face. For a moment he just smiles at her before pulling her into another hug. They’re different to the other Tributes, he tells himself. Maybe if he doesn’t think about last night’s dream, he’ll even begin to believe it.

The two are distracted promptly by the sound of someone clearing their throat. Pulling away and taking a small step apart, both of their faces tainted with an ever so slight blush, they simultaneously turn to look up at Murray who is giving them a slight smile. He motions between the two of them with a finger, raising an eyebrow.

“Am I interrupting something here?” he asks. Despite how teasingly the words could have been said, he seems to mean them seriously. John shakes his head as a reply from both of them. Murray just nods. “Well then. Shall we get to work?”

\-----

Once they’re both comfortably seated in the train’s overly-luxurious sofas (made of some sort of soft material that John is sure there’s some fancy name for but just cannot remember right now) John allows himself a second to breathe. Sarah is next to him, head raised again now that she has collected herself. Murray is sitting opposite them and only seems to be observing them for now. When the silence becomes almost unbearable, John jumps as Sarah is the one to break it.

“So you’ll be teaching us how to fight?” she asks.

To anyone who hadn’t grown up around her, she might sound apathetic, or cold. John knows differently, can hear that faint tremor in her voice that gives away her fear at the prospect of needing to really kill another person. Murray’s mouth quirks up slightly at the edges.

“No. Well, yes, but that’s just one part of it. Everyone always assumes the Games are just about being the strongest fighter, the best killer. There’s a lot more to it than that. The Games aren’t completely about strength and killing, they’re about intelligence and planning too. You can be the strongest or the tallest or the fastest, but if the better strategist gets the drop on you, you’re done for. You’ve seen alliances formed between groups in the games before, right?”

They both nod. Alliances are frightening things and John remembers watching the Hunger Games throughout the years of his neglected childhood and seeing so many people turn on their friends and kill them. To think that you could walk around with people like that and believe that you were both on the same side together makes John sick. It’s a bit idealistic to think that your friends are always going to be your friends, especially in a high stress scenario like the Games, but you’d at least hope that your friends wouldn’t shank you in the back with a knife.

“Well, most alliances are centred on one person’s ambitions and – nine times out of ten – that person’s the Thinker. Intelligence frightens people, you see. You can have as much muscle as you want but if you’re up against someone with the right intelligence then it’s absolutely useless.”

John’s thoughts immediately take him back to a certain tall, dark haired boy. Was Sherlock Holmes intelligent? He definitely looked it, and District Three often was. Would Sherlock form an alliance? Probably not, if he had the little girl – Molly, wasn’t it? – to watch out for, but he does look like he’d get along well with the Tributes from District One. Mentally shaking himself, John forces himself back into the current conversation; it seems no matter how he tries, his thoughts are always drawn back to the Holmes boy.

“So...what, exactly? You’re going to teach us how to think?” Sarah asks again, looking curious.

Murray shakes his head again. “Not quite. It’s not as simple as saying ‘do this, get that, build this, avoid that’. Because the second you forget something, someone with muscle will get a knife through you. And trust me, there are _always_ knives. The arena is a battlefield, kids, and it’s never as straightforward as you want it to be. I’m not just going to teach you how to think, I’m not just going to teach you how to fight. I’m going to teach you how to survive.”

\----


End file.
